1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a time-locking method for use in a communication network which has a star structure, said network comprising a plurality of stations, the exchange of information between the stations of the network being organized in a frame which comprises at least as many time slots as there are stations participating in said information exchange, said method comprising inter alia an initialization phase for phase locking the clocks of the stations and a time-locking phase which comprises the transmission of a synchronization word by an arbitrary station forming part of the network and the fixation of the time position of each station in the time slot allocated thereto.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A method of this kind is used in a communication network described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,418,579. This network comprises n stations which can communicate with each other via a satellite which forms the center for the exchange of information between the stations. This exchange of information is organized in a frame which has a duration T and which consists of time slots. Each station has its own time slot. After the initialization phase, a station which is referred to as the master station transmits a synchronization word which is identified by all other stations. Subsequently, each station performs a time-locking operation with respect to this synchronization word in order to fix its time position within the slot allocated thereto. In order to prevent overlapping into the time slot of another station, each time slot comprises an interval which is referred to as the guard interval.
It is a drawback of the method described in said U.S. Patent that this time interval in each time slot each time represents a period of time during which the network is not used, so that the traffic density in the network is reduced.